


Destroy Me

by BananasofThorns



Series: Arcanist's Lullabye [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Character Study, Episode: c02e093 Misery Loves Company, Gen, I like alluding to Caleb and Fjord's blood pact can you tell, because it's Caleb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:41:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24965410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BananasofThorns/pseuds/BananasofThorns
Summary: Before Jester, Caleb is the last to go in.(a what-if between Caleb and the hag)
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: Arcanist's Lullabye [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1759177
Comments: 5
Kudos: 71





	Destroy Me

**Author's Note:**

> [title from Destroy Me - grandson]
> 
> I wrote this immediately after watching ep93 like two months ago and I hadn't looked at it again until yesterday, when I edited the shit out of it. I am many thoughts head full about Caleb Widogast in this chili's tonight

Yasha steps out of the cabin with one hand on the hilt of the Magician’s Judge. Her mismatched eyes are dark with a dangerous, raging storm.

“She’s all yours, whoever wants to go in there,” she says. The bitter edge in her voice is almost as sharp as the blade of her sword.

Caleb and Jester step forward at the same time and nearly collide; ordinarily, Caleb would step back, but he forces himself to stay in place. There’s a sharp, collective inhale from behind them. Caleb ignores it. When he looks at Jester, her eyes are harsher and more calculating than he has ever seen them.

“Caleb—” she starts, her voice a mask of gentleness like she’s read straight through him to see the hard, determined void in his chest.

For once, his mouth moves before his mind, and the clipped monotone of his voice is a terrible echo of his past. “Let me go first.”

He snaps his fingers; raven-Frumpkin lands on his shoulder with a caw and a whoosh of feathers. Before Jester can protest, Caleb steps inside. He closes the door behind him and doesn’t look back. The hag’s smile stretches as she watches him approach the table. His own mouth remains a flat, dead line.

“I hear you deal in favors,” Caleb says. He sits, back ramrod straight in the simple wooden chair.

Isharnai leans forward. “I do,” she rasps. Her eyes, a deep, sickly green, flick to where Caleb’s hands are resting on the table. “You know all about that, don’t you?”

Caleb forces his hands to remain still. “I do,” he echoes.

“Interesting,” Isharnai muses. Her eyes linger on Caleb’s right hand, where the palm is pressed into the rough wood of the table, and she grins. “I haven’t encountered someone with a deal like yours in years. The person you made it with must be either very wise or very stupid, to shake on terms like that.”

The way she says it, fascinated and knowing, makes something deep in Caleb’s chest go hollow. Frumpkin shifts on his shoulder, feathers poofing. Caleb clenches his teeth against a sharp, humorless smile. His hand curls into a fist, fingers brushing against scar tissue, but he is otherwise motionless.

“That is not what I came in here to discuss.” He sits impossibly straighter and looks Isharnai directly in the eye. “I am a very miserable man.”

The hag chuckles; beside her, candles flicker as if the grating sound is drawing in their light. “Your misery is old. I want new misery,  _ fresh _ misery. What can you offer that will be an equal deed for what your friend has already given me?”

Caleb moves before he can convince himself otherwise. His right hand, when he raises it to the amulet around his neck, is shaking. Frumpkin’s warning caw pierces the air; Caleb ignores it. He does not blink, barely breathes. The amulet clinks impossibly loud against the rough-hewn wood when he drops it on the table.

He forces the words through his teeth.“This amulet keeps me safe - kept me safe - from something I would very much like to avoid. Lift your curse from my friend and I will—” he swallows. “I will hand myself over to the people I have been running from. Either I will be tortured to become the good soldier they always wanted me to be, or I will be tortured and killed.”

His voice is flat, stating simple facts that he has hidden from for years. Isharnai leans forward. She does not speak, but hunger claws at her mouth and lurks in the depths of her eyes.

Caleb clears his throat. “If they kept me alive, I would follow every order. I would—” he closes his eyes briefly, fighting the flames burning against his eyelids. “If they told me to execute my friends as traitors, I would do it. I would become the person they wanted me to be.”

He enunciates each word carefully, spitting the sentences onto the table like blood. Isharnai cackles.

“ _ That _ is new misery,” she rasps, her voice a delighted scrape of stone against stone. Her chuckles trail off into deadly silence. Then, “Do you accept this transaction?”

Frumpkin caws again, nearly a scream, and paces nervously on Caleb’s shoulder. For a long, long moment, all Caleb can hear is cackling fire. Flames flicker at the edges of his vision. He digs his nails into his palms, cutting into that thin, fateful line of scar tissue.

“Think about it if you’re uncertain. It would be a shame to walk away from all of this empty-handed,” Isharnai grins. Her fingers skitter towards the amulet on the table.

Frumpkin shoots off of Caleb’s shoulder in a whirlwind of feathers. Caleb’s arm moves before his brain does and his hand slams over the amulet. Metal scrapes across wood as his fingers curl into a fist. Isharnai snarls.

“I will think about it,” Caleb tells her.

He stands; the scrape of his chair against the floor of the cabin drags through his mind. Frumpkin lands on his shoulder and he forces himself to turn his back on Isharnai. The door slams shut behind him. He swallows down the nausea burning in his chest and looks at his friends.

“What happened? What did you offer?” Nott’s eyes are wide and frantic. “Caleb—”

Caleb doesn’t miss the way everyone is eyeing Frumpkin, nor does he miss the looks that cross their faces when he slips the amulet back over his neck. He ignores the glances they exchange with each other and avoids their eyes.

“We talked,” he says, forcing all emotion from his voice. “She is an interesting woman.”

“Did you make a deal?” Beau asks. Her eyes, though still red, are as sharp as ever. Caleb glances at her but looks away before he can read the questions on her face; he has a feeling she already knows and despises his answers.

“I did not.” He looks between Jester and Caduceus, the only two that remain. “I don’t think I left her in a very good mood.”

“That’s okay!” Jester chirps. She steps forward and opens the door without hesitation; it closes in the face of everyone’s protests.

There’s a beat of stunned, apprehensive silence before Frumpkin caws again and takes off into the air. Caleb tightens his hand around the amulet charm and tucks it back beneath his shirt. Though he avoids everyone’s silent, heavy questions, he can’t help but glance to where Fjord’s right hand is curled into a fist at his side.


End file.
